Friday, April 06, 2007 Vegas Grand Prix – Streets of Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada Round 1 of 14 in the Champ Car World Series 2007 Season
McDONALD'S® DRIVER BOURDAIS THIRD FAST IN PROVISIONAL QUALIFYING FOR THE VEGAS GRAND PRIX; ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS LIMITED MEDI | ZONE DRIVER RAHAL TO 15TH
Sebastien Bourdais, No. 1 McDonald’s Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone: “Well, it's pretty much in line with the way testing went. We just keep piling on problem after problem. So it's hard. The McDonald's team is doing a great job, but it seems out of our hands. Between the gearbox department and engine department, we just can't seem to get things reliable. It's really troublesome because obviously if you can't do more than 15 laps without having problems, entering a race is going to be kind of a little bit of a problem. But other than that, when we are on track, we are pretty quick I think. Only doing one run, being on blacks, the car behaved really well. There's really nothing to say about it. It's just we're going to need to be able to do more laps than this without coming into the pits and opening the rear deck.”
FAST FACTS: Will be his third race here. Has won both events he competed in, in Las Vegas…Started from pole in 2005 and led 53 laps en route to victory. During the race, made slight contact with Tracy who failed to signify he was pitting. Started third in 2004 and led 100 laps which included a wheel-to-wheel battle with his teammate Junqueira for the final 15 laps en route to a 0.066-second margin of victory. Bourdais and Junqueira swapped the lead four times in the final seven laps as well as ran wheel to wheel for the final 20… Became the first open wheel driver to win three consecutive championships since Ted Horn accomplished the feat from 1946-1948 and only the second in the 98 year history of the sport.
Graham Rahal, No. 2 Medi | Zone Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone: "It was a session of problems for the Medi | Zone team. At the end of the session I thought I had two good laps left then we had a shifting problem. I couldn’t shift up or down. We think we had an electrical problem that led to a shifting problem. Before that, the Medi | Zone car was acting really good and I was really pumped. I had a good out lap and I thought it was only going to get better but I went into Turn 1 and the shifting problem started. It’s a good thing that there are two qualifying sessions because we should definitely be up there.”
FAST FACTS: Will be his first race here as well as Champ Car debut…First test in a Lola Champ Car was for the team in Sebring, Fla. on September 13-14, 2006. Also ran in Homestead, Fla. and Houston in 2006. Tested the DP01 Panoz in Sebring, Houston and Laguna Seca in 2007. .. Rahal finished second in the 2006 Champ Car Atlantic championship after a title hunt that concluded in the season finale. Led 129 laps to champion Pagenaud’s 31. He earned a series-high five wins (42 percent), four poles (33 percent) and six podium finishes (50 percent) in the 12 events and at 17 years old was the youngest race winner in series history (Monterrey, Mexico on 5-21-06).
3 WINS, 1 POLE, 6 PODIUMS IN FOUR LAS VEGAS RACES: The team has earned THREE WINS (Bourdais 2004-2005, Mario Andretti 1983), ONE POLE (Bourdais 2005) and SIX PODIUM finishes in the FOUR Champ Car races here (2nd – Servia 2005, Junqueira 2004, Ma. Andretti 1984) and finished 2nd in the race they didn’t win. The series most recently competed at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2004 & 2005 and on a temporary road course around Caesars Palace in 1983-1984.
The morning practice session will take place from 9:45-11:00 AM PT while final qualifying will take place from 2:00-3:00 PM.
